zr riders take west virginia

Yesterday I took a vacation day and headed south. I slept in, packed the bike, and
headed south for Chillicothe, OH. The 45 miles south towards the Ohio border were
quick and productive--but as soon as I crossed into the Buckeye State I slowed and
tried to keep it within 7 mph of the speed limit, or keeping with traffic, which ever
was faster. Ohio is notorious for speed enforcement and is rather opportunistic with
their speed traps and ticket writing. None for me, thanks.

I motored all the way down past Columbus (the range on my ZR is great) and stopped in Shadeville
for gas and a sandwich. Shadeville appeared to be a Shell station and little more, but
they had very amusing customers. The best was a greying man, probably in his early fifties
dressed up in Fubu-ware. Big baggy shorts and matching shirt, black beret and thin sunglasses topped
his big fancy white sneakers. He came in driving a pimped out green Firebird booming out
some popular sounding hard hip-hop. The man had an extremely thin mustache drawn down
meeting his extremely thin beard outlining his jaw. This was complimented with a pointed
soul patch. His partner in crime dressed similarly, but looked more the part being about 17. Father and son, who knows?
Other customers were less interesting, they mostly drove really beat up cars, struggled with
the concept of prepare or fought with the credit card machine, and did fun things like
filling windshield wiper fluid bottles with gasoline. Apparently the south reaches all the way to
Columbus now.

In Chillicothe I met up with several other ZR Riders, Bill Jr, Joe, Tim E, and Tom at
Tim H's house. We rested for a while before heading straight out for the campsite.
Grabbing dinner along the way we made North Bend state park after dark. The ride in goes
up and then back down a large hill providing many tight hairpins in the dark--that's completely
blind!--with deer all along the way. We were lucky because these deer seemed to be quite used to people.
Only one I saw really freaked out. The rest of them just stood at the side of the
road or walked away.

We set up in the dark while the other riders--who had unfortunately been waiting for
us to get dinner--sought a DQ for the only nearby "resturaunt" still open at 9 pm. I'd
yet to set up my tent in the light, but I thought I'd be clever and use my headlight to illuminate
my work. After getting the tent up I went start the bike. ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR,
warned the starter, no juice for me. It seemed that my battery was too weak to start the
bike. Damn. Well, someone had jumper cables, so I choose to ignore this particular issue
'til morning. The ZR riders sat around, drank some beer, caught up from the last year,
and planned for the morning.

That morning we had a plan to meet Triumph group 150 miles away for lunch, so we
needed to be on the road by nine. Surprisingly, and unlike last year, we were all moving
and ready to go early in the morning. After Joe and Tom helped me jump start my bike
(4 screws, two bolts, 3 pairs of hands, a pair of cables, and 2 bikes) we even had time for
breakfast up at the lodge.

the camp site

joe resuscitating my bike, tom ready with the juice

robert's camera mount

the guest bikes, tom's yamaHOG and bill sr on his bmw gs 1150

joe looks like a storm trooper in his nolan flip-face helmet.

The first 10 or so miles out of North Bend took us across old, beat up, construction truck-carrying road.
There was a lot of gravel in the corners and wet roads showed
Valdez-like oil slicks. 16 miles in at our first gas stop for the day Joe declared that if
everyone had made it through that stretch we'd definitely survive the day. Thankfully he was right.

The roads greatly improved and our groups speed gradually rose and we loosened up and
found our chops. Some of the ZR Riders are lucky enough to live in the Appalachian foothills
or at least close to them, but some of us live 6 hours away from truly interesting roads.

Very soon after a gas stop along the New River we were halted by a very long train. We could see
the train crossing the river in the distance and moving towards us--it was clear we had some
time on our hands. I popped off my helmet and took some pictures of the crew. While I
photographed Tim H walked up to the lead truck, spoke for a moment, and returned charging his
arms above his head. Tim H and Bill Jr rode up in front of the front truck,
eventually convincing the rest of the group
to follow. We really didn't have a clue why Tim did this, but it became clear quickly.
Not only had our 10 minutes with train given the road a chance to drain of cars going our
direction, the upcoming section of road was one of the best we'd travel that day.

Tim H took off and we followed up the mountain full-twist. Our speed was only a
little bit faster than we
had been riding before, but the road was much more challenging. We were inspired, adrenaline for all!
Taking my bike from full lean in one direction over to full lean in the other quickly
is one of the coolest feeling things to do, and the road provided many opportunities for this
maneuver.

Robert had an awesome suction cup camera mount on his tank and used it to record many
great parts of the trip. These frames are from the first up the mountain after the train.
The movie is great, you can hear Robert scraping away his pegs and yelling, "Woo Hoo!"
Part way up the mountain he had a scary off-road experience, street bikes don't generally
do well off the road, but he skillfully directed the bike back to pavement. During
the extreme shocks of the uneven ground his camera mount broke loose from the tank and Robert
caught the camera! I know I would have let the camera drop and concentrated on
getting my ass back on the road in one piece, but Robert had it under control. In the
video you can see him mounting the camera back on the bike and he's still going 40 mph!
A great recovery!

Pulling into Hawk's Nest for lunch we parked taking as much space as possible. Our mood
was quickly dampened as Tim E discovered the clutch cable snapped on his ZR750. After many
phone calls he decided the bike was not fixable and rented a U haul. After lunch the group
help Tim tie the bike down.

The return ride was awesome, but unfortunately there were more cagers on the road and many of them
had something to prove. Over time we separated into 3 or 4 groups. For the last hour I rode with
Joe E (and Thom followed for a while, but he was eventually held back being unable to
pass a car) back to the camp site. Joe cut a fast and exciting line through the small town
and back roads of norht-western West Virginia. I followed Joe's line working harder than
I had during the entire trip. We spent most the day riding through curve after curve, often setting up 3 or
4 good corners a mile. This work was tiring and I eventually had to easy up as my
mind wore down.

Back at North Bend Joe, Thom, Tim E, and I were the last people to eat at the lodge.
The kitchen was out of half the menu and 3 of us settled on chicken parm because they had some.
At the campsite we found that the beverly hillbillies had moved in next door. We built
a fire, reviewed Robert's footage for the day, and drank the Champagne of Beers while bs'in away.
Bill Sr, having ridden all over, include the Yukon, Alaska, and Newfoundland (I must
return there on a motorcycle some day) had plenty of stories to tell. Bill Sr appreciated the
different style of riding, carving mountains instead of exploring miles and miles of far
off places, "I like riding with you guys on your Kawasuckies."